Idling/Startup Problem
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1st Gear
Joined: Mar 2009
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Idling/Startup Problem
(edit) This got a lot longer than I expected, so I put a summary at the bottom.
A few weeks ago I bought my first corvette, a yellow 82. It seemed to run ok at the sellers house, and the body/interior were in good condition, and his asking price seemed a great deal for me all things considered, so I bought it and had it trailered home. (I bought about 400 miles from my house)
My first cause for concern was when I tried to get it off the trailer. The engine would not turn over without me hitting the accelerator a bit, and even then it would puff blue smoke out of the exhaust and eventually idle down and die. I resorted to re-starting the car by hitting the accelerator, and keeping it held down to rev the engine a bit, and this prevented the car from dying. After 2-3 minutes of doing this I let off the accelerator(it had quit blowing smoke at this point) and the car idled fine. I was able to run it around my neighborhood with everything going great until about 15 minutes in the car started to overheat.
So at this stage I have two problems. 1) The starting/idling issue, and 2) overheating.
I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to working on cars myself, but I have some friends who are pretty good, and I bought this vette as a learning experience. Together with a friend we began working on the overheating problem as it seemed a bit easier to fix, and a good first project. We started by checking the coolant fluid in the radiator, something I had done before I bought the car (it was full at this time) and I was surprised to see it was 1-2 gallons low on coolant. We hadnt spotted a liquid leak anywhere on the ground so we assumed it was a radiator leak. We refilled it and started the car again to see if it overheated and/or leaked when under pressure. Sometime in here we noticed the fan was spinning very slowly, and not revving up with the engine. One new fan clutch installed and the problem was gone.
No gas/liquid coolant leaks were visible, but the car continued to overheat. Our next step was to put in a new thermostat (the one we replaced was relatively new so we think the car had the overheating problem before, despite the seller denying this).
At this point we took a break to do a tuneup and replace the alternator, power steering, and AC belts as they were slipping. We drove the car home from my friends garage and it never overheated, even after an hour long ride on the highway.
The car then sat for a few days as we had some rain and I had long work days. When the weather cleared the car would not turn over and stay going even with me giving it a lot of gas. Despite my best efforts I couldnt get the car to continue running for anything. I gave up after a half hour or so and didnt touch it for a few more days. 3 or so days later the engine fired right up without and pressure on the accelerator, and while it did idle down and eventually die on its own, by giving it a little gas for 60 seconds or so it proceeded to run fine. Or so I thought.
It was at this point it started streaming liquid coolant from a gasket on the water pump. This explains where my coolant had been going, and in our estimation probably explains the remaining overheating as well. I still havent gotten to install the pump because of work demands, but I am fairly confident that this mystery is solved.
(I know its a lot of words above, so here is a summary)
My big concern at this point is the engine not turning over without me giving it gas, obviously running rich, and the engine not staying running without me holding the accelerator. We replaced all the plugs and wires, so now my next guess is the distributor maybe? This is really well beyond my scope of knowledge as well as my friends so I am turning here.
A few weeks ago I bought my first corvette, a yellow 82. It seemed to run ok at the sellers house, and the body/interior were in good condition, and his asking price seemed a great deal for me all things considered, so I bought it and had it trailered home. (I bought about 400 miles from my house)
My first cause for concern was when I tried to get it off the trailer. The engine would not turn over without me hitting the accelerator a bit, and even then it would puff blue smoke out of the exhaust and eventually idle down and die. I resorted to re-starting the car by hitting the accelerator, and keeping it held down to rev the engine a bit, and this prevented the car from dying. After 2-3 minutes of doing this I let off the accelerator(it had quit blowing smoke at this point) and the car idled fine. I was able to run it around my neighborhood with everything going great until about 15 minutes in the car started to overheat.
So at this stage I have two problems. 1) The starting/idling issue, and 2) overheating.
I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to working on cars myself, but I have some friends who are pretty good, and I bought this vette as a learning experience. Together with a friend we began working on the overheating problem as it seemed a bit easier to fix, and a good first project. We started by checking the coolant fluid in the radiator, something I had done before I bought the car (it was full at this time) and I was surprised to see it was 1-2 gallons low on coolant. We hadnt spotted a liquid leak anywhere on the ground so we assumed it was a radiator leak. We refilled it and started the car again to see if it overheated and/or leaked when under pressure. Sometime in here we noticed the fan was spinning very slowly, and not revving up with the engine. One new fan clutch installed and the problem was gone.
No gas/liquid coolant leaks were visible, but the car continued to overheat. Our next step was to put in a new thermostat (the one we replaced was relatively new so we think the car had the overheating problem before, despite the seller denying this).
At this point we took a break to do a tuneup and replace the alternator, power steering, and AC belts as they were slipping. We drove the car home from my friends garage and it never overheated, even after an hour long ride on the highway.
The car then sat for a few days as we had some rain and I had long work days. When the weather cleared the car would not turn over and stay going even with me giving it a lot of gas. Despite my best efforts I couldnt get the car to continue running for anything. I gave up after a half hour or so and didnt touch it for a few more days. 3 or so days later the engine fired right up without and pressure on the accelerator, and while it did idle down and eventually die on its own, by giving it a little gas for 60 seconds or so it proceeded to run fine. Or so I thought.
It was at this point it started streaming liquid coolant from a gasket on the water pump. This explains where my coolant had been going, and in our estimation probably explains the remaining overheating as well. I still havent gotten to install the pump because of work demands, but I am fairly confident that this mystery is solved.
(I know its a lot of words above, so here is a summary)
My big concern at this point is the engine not turning over without me giving it gas, obviously running rich, and the engine not staying running without me holding the accelerator. We replaced all the plugs and wires, so now my next guess is the distributor maybe? This is really well beyond my scope of knowledge as well as my friends so I am turning here.
Pro
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 645
Likes: 1
From: Hayward Wi
This one has Cross fire injection right http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...n-problem.html read this might shead some light on what could be going on if its X Fire injection
Last edited by PuddleJumper; Mar 23, 2009 at 06:00 PM.
